UPCOMING EVENTS

Streaming music service Rdio has made its service available in seven new countries — Mexico, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, and Austria — and has opened up free music streaming to users in Brazil.

Rdio has had trouble collecting new listeners compared to competitors Spotify and Rhapsody, and so it has been expanding its service all over the world to find more people to jam out to its 18 million song catalog. In late January, it opened up a free music streaming option to the U.K., Canada, Australia, and 11 other countries to get more people on board. Rdio is now available in 24 countries, some with free streaming and others only by paid subscription.

“Rdio is the best product on the market for discovering music, and we will continue to improve that discovery experience by developing smarter tools to surface artists and songs our users love,” Rdio CEO Drew Larner said in a statement. “By opening the social circle to seven new international markets, we’re making Rdio an increasingly global way to play, discover, and share music.”

By comparison, Spotify is available in 23 countries with free and paid options and has more than 5 million paid users. Rhapsody is only available in the United States, but it has accumulated more than one million paid users and will finally launch in Europe this year. Rdio has never released its paid user numbers, but it is widely suspected to be less than one million.

Rdio’s free music streaming is not unlimited, and you eventually get cut off and need to pay. Rdio in the U.S. costs $5 a month for web streaming, $10 a month for web and mobile apps, and $17 a month for family pricing. Pricing in other countries varies.

Additionally, Rdio also used today to launch a minor update to its iOS app. The new version of the app features a full-screen player and “social listening” so you can see which of your friends have listened to what albums.